It was an extremely controversial decision when Paramount gave Roberto Orci the director’s chair for the upcoming Star Trek 3. But it was nevertheless a genuine shock when the news broke recently that Orci would no longer be helming the sequel. With Orci sidelined, who would take up the baton to get the next Trek sequel across the finish line, ideally in time for a 2016 release timed to the franchise’s 50th anniversary? Apparently Paramount’s shortlist is now down to five potential directors: Rupert Wyatt, Morten Tyldum, Daniel Espinosa, Justin Lin, and Duncan Jones.

The names come from Deadline, who report that Rupert Wyatt is currently Paramount’s top choice, and that they have already taken meetings with him about the possibility. This wouldn’t be the first time Wyatt got to play in a beloved science fiction sandbox — he directed 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a flick that surprised many by proving to be far better than anybody had reason to expect from an Apes resurrection at this point. It was followed up by this past summer’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, directed by Matt Reeves, and the revived franchise is set to continue in a third film in 2016. Wyatt is a solid choice, if not an inspired one, but nor would he likely be a controversial hire, which might work as an olive branch to lure back Trek fans riled up by J.J. Abrams’ brand of Trek.

With Roberto Orci recently vacating the director’s chair on Star Trek 3, it leaves a big opening in a valuable franchise, and we expect that there will be a number of high profile filmmakers vying for the job. We’ve heard a few names mentioned as possibilities, but one director, and Star Trek veteran, has thrown his hat into the ring and is going hard for the job. This individual is none other than Jonathan Frakes, better known to some of you as Commander William T. Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation. That certainly would be keeping it in the family.

Talking to KOMO News in Seattle, Frakes said that not only has he already reached out to Paramount Pictures, the home of the rebooted franchise, via his agent. Beyond that, he has also personally contacted producer, and director of the first two installments, J.J. Abrams.

There’s been a lot of talk about Star Trek 3 lately, especially with Roberto Orci leaving the director’s chair on the third installment of the rebooted franchise. We’ve also heard rumors that the plot of the film may have involved time travel, or at least some kind of time travel device. 15 months after going dark on the internet, Orci briefly reappeared to shed some light on his exit, his continued involvement in the Trek series, and those reports about the story.

Back in September of 2013, Orci went onto the forums at TrekMovie and got into it with some fans over disparaging comments about Star Trek Into Darkness. He apologized, but shortly thereafter deleted his Twitter account and hasn’t been seen much, or at all, online since. However, that changed the other day when he hit up the same website to respond to some questions about his leaving.

Have you always wondered what it would look like if Doctor Who and Star Trek came together? If that’s the case, then today is your lucky day, sort of, in a weird, roundabout, totally unofficial way. Former Time Lord Colin Baker is going to have a guest appearance on the fan made Trek series Star Trek Continues. Even in this unusual manner, it’s hard not to get excited about the collision of two such long-lived, iconic sci-fi franchises.

A crowdfunded series, Continues is the brainchild of a group of likeminded Trek fanatics that seeks to give the characters from the original series a chance they never got when the show was prematurely cancelled. In their way, they carry on the Enterprise’s five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. And Baker is set to show up on the fourth episode of the series.

Since that other sci-fi mega-franchise with “Star” in the title has been hogging the limelight for the past few weeks, it makes sense that Star Trek might want to remind everybody that, hey, it’s still in the game too. What we definitely weren’t expecting, however, was the revelation that director Roberto Orci would allegedly no longer be at the helm of Trek’s next installment. While the whys and wherefores of that shocking announcement remain to be seen, we now have some information about where the story might have headed in Star Trek 3…or at least in the version of Trek 3 that would have been directed by Roberto Orci.

Devin Faraci over at Badass Digest has been sniffing around his sources since the story broke, and he claims production on Trek 3 was shut down by Paramount last month, with one of the primary contributing factors being the state and direction of the script. That script was being written by Orci in collaboration with up-and-coming screenwriters Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, who had also been tapped to write a Flash Gordon remake. There were rumors about Trek 3’s story, of course — it was supposed to officially kick off the Enterprise’s five-year mission of exploration, with both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy rumored to be appearing as older versions of Kirk and Spock, respectively. But very little had been actually confirmed. According to Badass Digest, however, the Trek 3 script in question would have returned to a trope Trek has used oh so many times before: time travel.

This is news that I suspect is going to make a lot of Star Trek fans out there very, very happy. The much-maligned Roberto Orci has vacated the director’s chair of the upcoming Star Trek 3. That alone is newsworthy, but the first name to be mentioned in regards to filling that slot up again is an exciting one: Edgar Wright.

A writer and producer on the first two films, Orci was tapped to take the directing job on Star Trek 3, which would have been his first job helming anything, let alone a blockbuster feature, after J.J. Abrams left the rebooted franchise for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Deadline reports, however, that this is no longer the case. It’s unclear if the decision was Orci’s, or if the Paramount brass had anything to do with pulling the plug. He’s still going to stay on as a producer and writer, which seems unlikely if he was fired, but who the hell knows, maybe they gently suggested he step down.